Several types of strollers are capable of converting into car-seats. When traveling by motor vehicle with a small child, these types of strollers are more practical than carrying both a child car safety seat and a separate stroller because they take up less space and cost less. The problems that face the convertible stroller/car-seats now on the market are: the complexity and number of parts, their weight and size, and the difficulty of converting the child car seat to the stroller, or the stroller to the child car seat particularly when the child remains in the carrier.
A stroller that converts into a child car seat is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,104,134 entitled CHILD'S COMBINATION CAR-SEAT AND STROLLER to Cone. Cone discloses a molded plastic shell, which supports lower door panels and a wheel assembly. The wheel assembly moves along a pair of support members between an upper, retracted position within the shell and a lower extended position beneath the shell. A pair of struts support the front wheels, and a pair of struts support the rear wheels. Both pairs of struts are pivotally connected at one end to a manual release member. The wheel assembly of Cone includes numerous parts, which will add to the weight of his combination. Further, for the child to remain in the seat while converting the combination into the car seat or into the stroller, it must be lifted off the ground while simultaneously pulling or pushing the wheel release member to permit the door panels to open or close.
The following patents are characteristic of the present state of art in this field. U.S. Pat. No. 4,989,889 to Qureshi et al. discloses a body with a seat portion, arm rests on each side of the seat portion and a wheel assembly. The wheel assembly includes a plurality of struts, each strut having a first end pivotally connected to the body and a remote end to which a wheel is rotatably attached. The struts are rotated to a retracted position in which the device is used as a car seat and to an extended position in which the device is use as a stroller. Each arm rest defines a cavity for receiving the wheels and struts when disposed in their retracted position. Means are connected to each strut to lock it in each of its extended and retracted positions. A cover closes the cavities when the wheels are disposed in their retracted position and would require the device to be lifted before the wheels could be extended. Qureshi also discloses the use of openings to attach a car seat-belt on the rear of his device. Another example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,679,804 to Johnson discloses a convertible car-seat/stroller which includes a plurality of legs, each having a first end pivotally connect to the seat and a second end to which wheels are rotatably connected. The legs are rotated from a retracted position underneath the seat to an extended position.
The convertible child car seat/strollers, as described above, have wheel assemblies, which may be converted to a stroller by disposing their wheel assemblies to an extended position. Typically, it is necessary to lift such convertible apparatus, often with a child seated therein, and at the same time to manually lower the wheel assemblies to their extended position. If wheel assemblies having locking mechanisms, it may be necessary to manually actuate such mechanisms to release the wheel assemblies from their retracted positions, again at the same time the user is lifting the apparatus and pulling down the wheel assemblies.